It is reported that Turkmenistan imposes an identity requirement for SIM registration. Anyone wanting to purchase a SIM card has to provide their national ID card or a passport in case of foreigners to activate a new prepaid SIM card.

There are reports of severe blocking of social networking platforms, foreign media and foreign websites. Furthermore, it is reported that authorities blocked 133 of the most popular worldwide websites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Zoom, Skype, and messaging apps. In addition, the government has also been reported to block sites that offer circumvention tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxies since 2015.
Moreover, Turkmenistan is reported to impose strict filtering rules for popular websites and many other websites containing parts of the same domain. It is estimated that the filtering rules could be causing the unintentional blocking of more than 5.4 million domains as collateral damage to the 122,000 blocked domains confirmed in the country.

The indicator "7.2.4 - Government Internet shut down in practice" of the V-Dem Dataset, which measures whether the government has the technical capacity to actively make internet service cease, thus interrupting domestic access to the internet or whether the government has decided to do so, has a score of 1 in Turkmenistan for the year 2024. This corresponds to "The government shut down domestic access to the Internet numerous times this year."

Turkmenistan does not mandate functional or accounting separation for operators with significant market power (SMP) in the telecom market.

Art. 22.19 of Law No. 205-VI of Turkmenistan, "On licensing of certain types of activities," provides that communications activities must be licensed. According to Art. 3 of Law No. 205-VI, foreign natural and legal persons (including their branches) and stateless persons are entitled to obtain a license under the same conditions and procedures as natural and legal persons of Turkmenistan. Art. 47.1 of Law No. 93-IV provides that telecommunications operators are obliged to carry out activities in the field of licensed communications. Despite the regime appearing to be non-discriminatory in the regulatory texts, it is reported that the government exercises tight control and significant management over the country's telecommunications sector. Currently, only one major mobile telecommunications company is operating in the country, namely Altyn Asyr, a subsidiary of the state-owned Türkmenaragatnaşyk. In addition, it is reported that only one foreign provider, Mobile Telesystems of Russia, has received a license in the past. However, the licence was not renewed in September 2017, resulting in its disconnection from the country's network.

Turkmenistan has not appended the World Trade Organization (WTO) Telecom Reference Paper to its schedule of commitments. In fact, Turkmenistan is not a member of the WTO.

Turkmenistan has a telecommunications authority: the Agency for Transport and Communications (Turkmenaragatnashyk). However, the decision-making process of this entity is not fully independent from the government, given that the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan governs it.

According to Art. 17.2 of Law No. 519-V, the transborder transfer of personal data to the territory of foreign countries shall only take place if those countries guarantee the protection of personal data. In addition, Art. 17.3. points out that the cross-border transfer of personal data to the territory of foreign countries that do not ensure the protection of personal data may be carried out in the following cases: 1) if the data subject has given their written consent to the cross-border transfer of his personal data; 2) if international agreements approved by Turkmenistan provides for it; 3) if provided by the laws of Turkmenistan, if it is necessary for the purposes of protecting the principles of constitutional structure, human and civil rights and freedoms, public health and morals, public order, protecting the country and ensuring state security; 4) to protect the life, health, other legal interests, constitutional rights and freedoms of the data subject or other persons, if it is not possible to obtain the data subject's consent. Otherwise, pursuant to Art. 17.4, the international transfer of personal data abroad may be prohibited or restricted by the legislation of Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan has not joined any agreement with binding commitments to open transfers of data across borders.

Act No. 519-V provides a comprehensive regime of data protection in Turkmenistan. It provides for data subject rights, data controller obligations, data transfer restrictions, and general principles for the collection and processing of personal information. It does not, however, contain data breach notification requirements, nor does it address the appointment of data protection officers. In addition to Act No. 519-V, the Code for Criminal Liability of 10 May 2010 No. 104-IV provides protection against cybercrimes, and further provisions applicable to data protection can be found in other legislation, such as the Code of Turkmenistan of 29 August 2013 No. 422-IV on Administrative offences.

Art. 13 of Law No. 226-VI contains provisions for storing electronic documents and archives of electronic documents. Electronic documents must be stored on an electronic storage medium in a form that allows their integrity and authenticity to be verified on the applicable medium. The obligation to store electronic documents lies with the involved parties of electronic document management. This includes any party, whether public or private, that owns the documents, or in whose interests they are to be used, or by whom they are to be stored, protected, blocked or removed, and so forth. Subjects of electronic document management can ensure the storage of electronic documents independently and use the services of intermediaries, archival institutions, and other institutions in electronic document management. In addition, Art. 56 provides that the body considering disputes between the subjects of electronic documents, electronic document flow and digital services shall have the right to demand from all subjects involved in the compilation, transmission, receipt, processing and storage of electronic documents the necessary materials and documents concerning the subject of the dispute.
Art. 20 of Law No. 392-IV requires documents in electronic form to be retained for three years.

It is reported that there is tight state control of the economy, and the government has only allowed significant foreign ownership and foreign direct investment in the energy sector. Therefore, foreign ownership in the telecom sector is restricted. In addition, Art. 16 of the Law about Communications states that government, postal and courier communications, technical means and networks of telecommunications used for defence, national security, protection of the State border and law and order, as well as technical means of national television and radio broadcasting and the enterprises ensuring their operation and development, belong exclusively to State ownership.

The government owns shares in certain telecom companies. In particular, it owns shares in Turkmentelekom TC, which is a fully state-owned enterprise; Ashgabat City Telephone Network, with a 30% participation of the Ministry of Communications of Turkmenistan and 60% of Turkmentelekom; Altyn Asir CJSC (TMcell), which is fully owned by the Ministry of Communications of Turkmenistan.

Art. 43.2 of Law No. 629-V states that, unless otherwise provided by international treaties to which Turkmenistan is a party, foreign persons, as well as citizens of Turkmenistan residing outside the territory of Turkmenistan or having their permanent residence outside the territory of Turkmenistan, can exercise their rights in relations with Turkmenpatent (which is the State Service for Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan) only through patent attorneys registered at Turkmenpatent.

Art. 16 of Law No. 629-V establishes that an application for a patent or a limited patent shall be submitted in the State language (Turkmen). Other application documents may be submitted in another language, accompanied by their translation into the State language.